On a summer evening I walked around on Jachthaven de Hanze at the Black Water and took some photo’s.

My view :).

Remarkable, but it does exist, light fixtures with lights that are non-replacable. I had no idea it existed, so with a friend I was naive enough to buy a lamp at the Leen Bakker shop. A fixture for the ceiling, with 4 spotslights with a LED inside. Hung it up, and it worked fine.

Half a year later it turns out that one of the lights had died. I go see how to replace it. Usually it is quite simple with Halogen lights, or similar LED-lights for these fixtures. But I just didn’t have a clue how to replace this one, or even what connection it used.

So we went back to the Leen Bakker, and we see on the box that the lights are non-replaceable. The salesman even claimed that those lights would ofcourse make a 100,000 hours. Ofcourse. Such a light has been made in Hungary or wherever, has traveled a 1000 km in the back of a truck, and in every warehouse somebody kicked against it. Ofcourse one of those 4 lights will die within half a year.

I too am happily joining the throwaway society. The cheaper something is, the sooner I can buy something new again. But this is going a bit far. You buy such a light fixture to hang it to the ceiling and forget it. Not to buy a new one every 2 years.

Matthew B. Crawford has written Shop Class as Soulcraft, about craftmanship in current times. Another book by him that was just published is World Beyond Your Head, which is about distraction and being an individual in the current society.

Sure something to read on a quiet evening.